Pubdate: Sat, 26 Mar 2005
Source: Regina Leader-Post (CN SN)
Copyright: 2005 The Leader-Post Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/regina/leaderpost/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/361
Author: Sharon Kirkey, CanWest News Service
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n321/a05.html?40344
Cited: Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies 
http://www.maps.org/

'MAGIC' MUSHROOMS EYED FOR CLUSTER HEADACHE RELIEF

OTTAWA -- The pain strikes without warning in the middle of the night, an 
explosive shot of pain on one side of Doug Wright's head that feels "like a 
red hot poker suddenly stuck through my eye."

He bolts from bed. He can't lie down, he can't sit still; he paces and 
moves, and if he can't abort the headache instantly by inhaling high-dose, 
high-flow oxygen from the tank he keeps in his house, he drops to his 
knees, screaming in agony. Twice he has blacked out from the pain.

Wright, who turns 49 this year, has suffered from cluster headaches for 30 
years. His are "episodic": Three to five headaches per day, for eight to 10 
weeks duration at a time. "Chronics" experience one to five headaches every 
day, day in and day out.

"One of the old terms, if you go into medical sites for cluster headaches, 
is 'suicide headaches."' Wright treats his using oxygen therapy and 
medicines that constrict the blood vessel walls in his head. Psilocybin -- 
the key ingredient in "magic" mushrooms -- could be next.

"Let me state up front that I have not tried this treatment, yet, myself. 
It's illegal. The last thing I want is some person banging on my door, 
questioning what I'm doing, or what's going on," the Nanaimo, B.C., 
chiropractor says.

But, as Harvard University doctors prepare to test the hallucinogenic 
fungus, as well as LSD, against cluster headaches, Wright hopes to be involved.

Decades after another Harvard alumnus proselytized the healing powers of 
hallucinogens, research into psychedelic medicine is experiencing a 
reawakening.

But Timothy Leary wasn't advocating pain control: He pushed psychedelics as 
the path to enlightenment.

Today, hallucinogens are on a path to redemption, with a small group of 
researchers studying LSD, magic mushrooms, MDMA (the drug used to make 
ecstasy) and even ibogaine, a psychoactive derived from the root bark of an 
African plant, as treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder, 
obsessive-compulsive behaviours, drug and alcohol addiction and anxiety and 
physical pain from terminal cancer. "It may not be long before doctors are 
legally prescribing hallucinogens for the first time in decades," a recent 
article in New Scientist magazine predicted.

In addition to testing LSD and psilocybin for cluster headaches, 
researchers at Harvard University won U.S. Food and Drug Administration 
approval in December to test MDMA-assisted psychotherapy on eight people 
with advanced cancer. MDMA, or 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine -- street 
names "ecstasy, Adam, XTC, hug, beans and love drug," according to the U.S. 
National Institute on Drug Abuse -- is a psychoactive. Studies on animals 
suggest it works on serotonin, the brain chemical that regulates mood and 
sensitivity to pain.

The work is being partly funded by MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association 
for Psychedelic Studies based in Sarasota, Fla., whose mission is to 
support scientific research "designed to develop psychedelics and marijuana 
into FDA-approved prescription medicines, and to educate the public 
honestly abut the risks and benefits of these drugs," according to its Web 
site. MAPS is supporting a preliminary study at the Iboga Therapy House 
near Vancouver to test ibogaine (which is not a controlled substance) in 
treating cocaine, crack, alcohol and other chemical addictions.

Anecdotal and case reports suggest magic mushrooms or LSD may not only 
reduce pain from cluster headaches, but also stop the cycling course of 
attacks. According to Dr. John Halpern, an instructor in psychiatry at 
Harvard Medical School who is heading the LSD/psilocybin cluster headaches 
study, no conventional medications exist that can do that.

In Canada, the non-profit Organization for Understanding Cluster Headache 
(OUCH) Canada, which Wright, of Nanaimo, helped found, is disseminating 
information and links to the studies on its Web site (www.clusterheadaches.ca)
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom